Jerel Worthy's NFL Draft experience lasted an extra night, a few extra meals, another several hours of uncertainty.

The draft's second round was less of a tease, but barely, as Worthy slid further than projected.

"Just sitting around waiting for the chance to prove people wrong," Worthy tweeted shortly before the second round began.

The Green Bay Packers have given Worthy his chance.

The Packers selected Michigan State's disruptive defensive tackle 51st overall — the 19th pick of the second round Friday evening — making Worthy the first to be picked of seven Spartans expecting to be drafted.

Four defensive tackles were chosen ahead of Worthy, three on Thursday — Memphis' Dontari
Poe (Kansas City, No. 11), Mississippi State's Fletcher Cox
(Philadelphia, No. 12) and LSU's Michael Brockers (St. Louis, No. 14) —
during a run on the position in the middle of the first round.

View full sizeAP PhotoJerel Worthy hoped to go in the first round of the NFL Draft. Instead, the Michigan State All-American slid to almost the middle of Round 2.

"I vowed to myself as well as my father that I would strive to do the best by him and my mother, strive to get these guys the proper health service that they need," Worthy said during that early January press conference.

Based on last season's rookie contracts, Worthy's deal with Green Bay should be in the neighborhood of $4 million over four years, probably about $1.4 million of that guaranteed.

Worthy started 38 games at Michigan State, helping the Spartans become the nation's sixth-ranked defense in 2011.

Draft projections had the 6-foot-2, 309-pound Ohio native being selected somewhere in the mid-20s to mid-30s, supposedly putting Worthy on the bubble of the first and second rounds.

Quarterback Kirk Cousins is the next former Spartan expected to be drafted, sometime in the second or third round.